1. Field of the Invention
These innovations and technology have been designed to improve the public""s safe use of vehicles, equipment and machinery. They have been first designed to improve on the already deadly and destructive situations of out of control vehicles due to operator incapacity, and/or car theft and carjackings. The objective has been to help limit and/or restrict as many fatalities, personal injuries and property damage as possible. This will basically be accomplished by reducing the amount of time and space these horribly uncontrolled and irrational events exist for and/or take place in. These innovative systems and devices are not a panacea. The invention is simply designed to improve on an already poor public safety situation by limiting the time and involved area of these irrational events (e.g., out of control machinery).
It is the full intention of this technology to ultimately support and help provide fully automated robotics systems that can remotely control vehicles and equipment in a responsible and accountable manner in the future through the best and most optimum progression of commercial developments, first, from uniquely combined Commercial Off The Shelf C.O.T.S. products, and secondarily, as a condensed, consolidated set of hardware, firmware, and coordinated software programs in accountable, protected system of products that will become multi-industry standards and insurance requirements and rate qualifying devices for remote control and robotics.
In an effort to initiate a collaborative process and be a part of any dialogue along these lines either already in progress or planned for in the future, this technology will develop and continually augment, its preprogrammed controls, communication systems, and functional peripheral devices, sensors and systems to be a part of the diverse equipment and systems already merging, communications with programmable control circuits and electrically controlled devices, like those detailed in this application. It will also continue to offer the most needed solutions for a progressive accountable process of remote control and device deployment as well as increase and enhance computers and software to ultimately run, safe, accountable robotics vehicles and highways as has been discussed earlier in all the related patent applications.
The programs of the present invention will first structure acceptable accountable remote control protocols in a progressive layer of commercial enhancements to best marry their social, economic, environmental, and technical presence through commercial markets. This is a necessity because, there actions will be governed by the individual systems capabilities. Triage control will be programmed for the best option at any given time to control a vehicle and responsive systems in the safest manner through any available equipment on the market at a given time and/or outfitted on any particular host piece of equipment. Because, there will be such a wide variation of individual equipment capabilities, a great deal of effort has been taken to backward engineer, as well as, accommodate present engineering and future engineering in this process to develop acceptable modalities and standards for accountable aggressive remote control at various levels. There will be many versions of xe2x80x9cTriagexe2x80x9d that will first have as a goal to slow, stop and secure a vehicle stationary position.
The next progressive development detailed in this application will control the steering in degrees. And finally the speed control either using OEM cruise controls modified for this purpose or any of the acceleration controls detailed in this application and/or related patent innovations that will be responsive to the interface data commands given by any onboard control circuitry. A protected Primary Focal Node a (PFN) will house this control circuitry and communication circuits to receive transmissions and/or directions supplied by GPS signals and interactive highway transmitters, RF signals, or infrared beacons and/or any cell phone locating technology, along with distant sensors to remotely guide and control speed and direction remotely in robotics scenarios. Ultimately this inventions Primary Focal Node a (PFN) will manage preprogram travel plans for long and even short travel, as well as, handle completed vehicle operations, if so desired.
This invention will first commercialize these devices for specific use with law enforcement stressing the need for responsible supervised optimally physically visible scenarios first. So any technical bugs can be worked out and the learning curve for the rest of humanity can be plotted and develop with proper progressive guide lines and instructions for the safest public use. This also needs to be done progressively to equip the individual vehicles with these devices. Either for the new vehicles and/or for any after market or retrofitting of old ones. This will be initially accomplished through Commercial Off The Shelf parts or C.O.T.S. innovations, a process already described in earlier related applications. Secondly, this invention will strive to commercialize these devices along with its electronic control systems to be as much a part as possible in developing the interactive highway systems in any collaborative effort that presents itself. As this process progresses, the original third modality, described in PCT/US97/21516, a private, public and/or commercial monitoring and control system of any size will be created and combined to fulfill the scope of this invention for not only the automobile industry but also, for many community public safety programs, which, are termed Green Eyes and Spider Eyes program and detailed in this and related patents and involve machinery and equipment. This commercialization will interface its technology and any other associated technologies through the 1000 series devices along with the 1100 controller systems and the 1200 network to ultimately create fully automated and robotics public transportation systems that will produce more individual freedom for all the public, increase its safety, security and develop accountably for society to transact its mechanized business responsibly and with fair exchange to each other individually. (The time question is: when and how long?) And this question finds its answer in how well all work with one another in any joint ventures, with real genuine cooperation from the individuals, businesses, and governments involved. Time estimate, circa 2015, for fairly extensive and sophisticated social transportation and environmental control systems. This is a modest estimate for full robotics in an acceptable, accountable and/or societal form for personalized transportation. But there will be a vast amount of changes in any personal transport vehicles.
2. Background of the Related Art
Humanity is already married to its technology, and like all other marriages it will only be as functional as those in the relationship. The vehicles, machines and equipment are here in this human existence. This technical automation, communication, and control of machinery has already been proven to be a real present day need for humanity as it strives for its own individual social emotional development. So all that remains is to make this technology available, affordable, and perfect it, to be as secure, reliable, responsible, respectful of and as accountable to the individual, to any business and to the government it will be serving. This is the goal of this technology for remote control of humanity, s equipment and the responsible development of robotics.
The invention has been designed to work with all willing technologies to develop a secure and accountable communication and control systems for every piece of Machinery through a Machine Messaging Network (MMN), detailed in PCT/US99/00919.
There are many other commercial interest in this area, as well as different technologies. These technologies have very specific and finite focuses with their remote control and/or automated vehicle systems in which they do not address aggressive remote control and accountability. While there is a great deal of similar developments, this technology and the innovations detailed here and in the related applications are unique and were created to achieve real time aggressive and accountable remote control though as versatile means in communications, control circuitry, and peripheral devices and systems and to provide these qualities as part of any standard developed for automated and remote control.
One other already issued U.S. patent, incorporated herein by reference, to Prince Corporation, now merged with Johnson, controls claims after a car""s ignition has been turned off and the fuel pump has been deactivated.
The experimentation on this invention""s technology to restrict fuel to the power plant to create an effective slow down was an unknown parallel development of similar concepts but without question resulting in uniquely different modalities and vision of purpose. There is no intention of this invention to compete with any already existing business, manufacture, government agency, and/or public interest at this time. Only a genuine and very real desire to be cooperative, supportive, informative and a real worthy partner to do good and fair business jointly for the betterment of humanity and its responsible machine use whenever and wherever possible.
With that stated, similar parts of this technology already exists in piecemeal (i.e., C.O.T.S.) products. But it is abundantly clear and obvious that the invention has its own unique devices, modalities, systems and C.O.T.S. innovations developed into protocols to complete the total task of automating for accountable remote control every piece of equipment in the world. However, it is also abundantly clear that this technology has been specifically designed to couple and interface with all existing technology in all stages of remote control development to enhance their systems and complete a far greater remote control system product then ever imagined before. This application and related applications detail clearly the most unique development for accountable controls over humanities equipment and its social, economic and environmental impact and functions.
This invention develops the monitoring and control system (i.e., this application""s 1000- 1100- 1200 series devices and systems, Coyote Tricksters, interactive highway Helping Hand, and Spider Eyes as well as Green Eyes Programs), either as isolated monitoring, control and/or management systems or as part of a massive reporting system that incorporate the World Wide Web (WWW). This is created by merging data collected by PFN boxes on the equipment, through their data transmissions to servers that post this data on public web pages, or on any level home web pages, or e-mail boxes, through either cooperating g agencies, commercial corporations, social organizations, and individually set up and/or owned and operated web sites. These phone node gateways and/or RF signal gateway terminals can be interfaced to any computer network system of any size for monitoring, analyzing and/or remotely controlling equipment. This creates the real-time link for the machine messaging network by utilizing the world wide web to make some of the larger and longer connections (MMNWWW) and RF equipment and telephony technology to send the control signals.
To continue the early development of these most sensitive law enforcement protocols this technology will try to seek out companies already doing responsible business, such as Lojack, who use special police radio frequencies in tracking stolen vehicles for law enforcement in a limited but responsible manner presently. This invention will also seek out telecommunication companies (i.e., pager and cell phone companies) as well as any radio equipment manufactures and make a strong attempt to combine this technology""s accountable and protective features with the efforts of existing products and programs like the GM AOn Star product. Most definitely this technology will seek out all the automobile manufactures and their supply line manufactures to coordinate the development of peripheral controls accessories and sensors to interface with this technology""s protected primary focal node as part of any industry standard for automotive electrical systems.
This technology recognized early on the absolute need to coordinate and create standards for accountability in any automotive altercations involving machine messaging from remote locations with insurance and governmental regulations and approval, which greatly enforces the need for a standard. This is very much needed for risk management insurance with the 911 system and law enforcement today, and most necessary to continue with this technology""s purpose to provide accountable aggressive remote control, analytical data acquisition, and robotics, to more adequately serve all of the public""s needs. This is being done to more rapidly fulfill the public""s needs with responsible remote control devices in all of the industries and not run into the same growth problems AOL experienced. The plan has always been to create this technology, first as a combined effort with existing C.O.T.S. products and systems as has been detailed within all of the related applications, and then secondly to coordinate and consolidate these combined products and services into new safe service products for the public good, ease of use, safety, and an improved quality of life.
The OnStar program has already made important passive, but responsible inroads in reporting and/or contacting 911 in possible automobile emergencies when there is an SIR deployment, through their control centers. This invention welcomes any possible collaborative arrangement and/or interface links with OnStar in the development of this technology (MMNWWW), or in any interactive highway projects, and in this technology""s unique accountable, and aggressive remote control, management and/or security systems at any level of willing involvement.
In developing these security protocols, this technology provides all the appropriate encrypted codes needed to provide secure transmission of sensitive data from any equipment""s PFN if that might be needed or a requirement for personal, monetary transactions or sensitive data.
The invention is designed to combine and coordinate all vehicle machine and equipment technologies. And it is designed to be a natural and good commercial consolidation for space and cost to jointly interface and finally locate all hardware and control circuitry along with the software into a safe and protected area, legally and physically on each piece of equipment, which will be termed a (PFN) for protected primary focal node. This has always been the stated purpose and goal of the invention to help make humanity""s equipment safer, more accountable, more efficient and economical with responsible remote control for the public, for the individual, and for commerce. As always maintained with any and/or all of the devices or components concealed and/or protected to maintain data that is or are stored on location in as pristine a state as possible, and also to maintain a capability to report this same data to at least one remote location for application specific management and redundant storage. Which is the basic nature and scope claim of this technology in this application and all the related applications. This is accomplished with the PFN and this technoloy""s Trust Remote Activity Controller Software (TRAC).
It has also been a conscious intention to create these innovations from the first as C.O.T.S. parts to bring about their deployment in the most easy, rapid and efficient manner as commercially possible by cutting manufacture time and cost in developing them and to make available safer vehicles and equipment in a timely and affordable fashion for the public, and thirdly to make available these systems to more easily retrofit older vehicles, and other machines and equipment. There is no need to reinvent the wheel when it is not a necessity, just make the wheel better by adding new innovative technical spokes and uses. In all of these innovations, C.O.T.S. applications are addressed first to bring all influenced technologies, their products, the varied industries and people to an interactive commercial setting. So that involvement and incorporation of these technologies can best be severed while the public is serviced appropriately with good commercial offerings. This means coordinated good and real services and products that will be good business for all.
The major reasons this technology is first developed from C.O.T.S. products are for better public familiarity and market acceptance by the consumer, the small investor, and the sophisticated investor, and because of the natural collating and combining effect for all the different manufactures in these merging industries, and also to provide some backward and forward engineering capability to the process of developing a standard for responsible remote control devices and systems, and finally to point the way to the most logical and acceptable use of this technology""s consolidated and integrated circuitry choices. This process also helps the software production to be interfaced into the most concise and efficient PFN""s for every application and for every piece of equipment, as product evolutions either as circuit and device products or as other C.O.T.S. evolved products used in these unique ways for new purposes.
As the automation of controls for equipment, vehicles and machinery continue to advance to robotics from present day remote control and machine messaging though artificial intelligence, the need for accountable machine activity is as important as the development of the actuating devices that complete these remote and automated actions. Therefore, much time and detail has already been devoted to this in this invention""s related applications, and to the creation of redundant data record memories and a secure protected interface structure to preserve an accurate record, while protecting electrical control circuits simultaneously.
Even though this application extensively describes the controlling actuators to perform remote and automated control functions for most any manufacturer of vehicles, equipment and/or machinery, it will also describe and detail an extensive sensory and data acquisition feedback system to the protected primary focal nodes (PFN), to account and confirm all essential command communications and responses, both on location and/or redundantly sent to at least one remote location or gateway terminal for any desired network options. This is managed by this technology""s TRAC software and any system monitoring PFN s TRAC software.
As has been extensively described in all the related applications, the use of C.O.T.S. products will first be employed for a number of reasons. Obviously, it is the quickest most efficient, inexpensive way to rapidly merge existing technologies, their manufactures, and components to achieve an accountable remote control for aggressive situations in machine use presently. Also, the invention has been designed to accommodate future development for accountable sophisticated remote and automated control scenarios for everyday pieces of equipment and machinery as well as, help meet the social, science needs for these merged technologies to best perform these robotics functions. The invention is capable of providing a record to appraise, value and judge any equipment action and/or its components for societies organizations, the public, insurance concerns etc. (e.g., for manufacturer""s risk management, completed operations, product liability, etc.). This application will concentrate on the devices to affect remote and automated control and their monitoring system.